Role: Data analyst and Shinyapps developer
Massachusetts Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD) is piloting a new payment standard scheme and hired me to redevelop the “Address Locator Tool” for them. This tool is a free open-source online tool that allows the voucher holders and counselors to have detailed information of an area before signing a lease. This tool has been developed using R, R Studio’s Shiny apps, GoogleMaps API, Walkscore API, and FCC API.
The tool is under development, but here you can find the beta version online.
Background information:
This project started while I was an Urban Data fellow at TACC and has been ongoing since June 2017.
Mass Rental Housing Market Analysis (October 2017):
DHCD contacted TACC to do a Rental Market Analysis to launch a project’s pilot program. We used and analyzed several information sources but, more importantly, we compared different public housing payment standard with current prices from the data collected from Craigslist.org. This report has been used to determine the region in which the pilot program (SNO Mass) is today being deployed.
I can not share the final report, but I can share this short version of the report.
Mass Housing Locator Platform (April 2018 - Present):
At TACC I continued with the development of a free open-source online tool to help reduce some of the barriers low-income families face in using their housing voucher to access rental units in higher opportunity areas. The tool has two components:
- “Housing Locator Tool”, that allows renters to explore new areas and expand their search;
- “Address Locator Tool” that allows the searchers to look for social and environmental indicators for a particular address.
I presented this project at BARI’s Spring Conference 2018. Here you can find the slides and here you can find the online tool.